Here Comes the Sun: Ten Million Solar Rooftops

During the Constitutional Convention in 1787, Benjamin Franklin was waiting to sign a document that would hold the fate and destiny of the United States of America. As he stood, his eyes fell on a carving on the back of George Washington's chair, a carving of half a sun. He stared thoughtfully, questioning whether it was a rising sun that would continue to shine brightly over the nation or a setting sun that would bring darkness.

Our Founding Father could not have imagined the symbolic power that that image now holds as our nation looks to the sun as a source of clean renewable energy to brighten our future. Today 92% of Americans want our country to develop solar energy resources, and 77% believe the federal government should make solar power development a national priority.

Despite the recession, new U.S. solar installations are rising, as are new jobs and new economic growth. Data from the Solar Energy Industries Association show that total U.S. solar electric capacity from photovoltaic and concentrating solar power technologies climbed past 2,000 megawatts (MW) in 2009. Solar industry revenues also surged despite the economy, climbing 36%. Another sign of optimism is that venture capitalists invested more in solar than any other clean technology in 2009 – over $1.4 billion. For an industry with a total U.S. volume of $4 billion, that signals huge optimism about near-term growth.

The solar industry accounts for about 46,000 jobs in the U.S., and is expected to rise to 60,000 by the end of 2010. North Carolina, a state that has embraced renewable energy development, projects that as many as 28,000 new jobs and a 10 million ton reduction in greenhouse gas emissions will be achieved by 2030 if the state can draw 14% of its electricity from solar sources.

These figures are impressive, but the development of solar energy in the U.S. remains heavily aligned with federal and state incentive programs and policy. Between 2002 and 2008 over $70 billion of federal tax dollars went towards fossil fuels and just $1.2 billion towards solar power. New nuclear plants get more than triple the government subsidy that new solar plants get.

Still, there are some bright signs. The federal ARRA stimulus legislation has deployed more than 46 MW of solar power with the help of Section 1603 Treasury grants in lieu of investment tax credits. Solar equipment manufacturers have been awarded $600 million in manufacturing tax credits under ARRA, representing investments in new and upgraded facilities of more than $2 billion.

Property assessed clean energy financing, or PACE, legislation has been enacted in a growing number of states. PACE provisions will allow homeowners and businesses to finance solar energy systems through municipal or government-backed bonds via an assessment on their property taxes. This ensures the availability of credit, reduces up-front costs and facilitates transfer of the solar system to new property owners. [For a recent RenewableEnergyWorld.com article on PACE, click here.]

There is some innovative legislation in Congress too. Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) recently introduced a bill aimed at getting 10 million new solar rooftop systems and 200,000 new solar hot water heating systems installed in the U.S. in the next 10 years. The cleverly titled "10 Million Solar Roofs & 10 Million Gallons of Solar Hot Water Act" will provide rebates that cover up to half the cost of new solar systems, along the lines of incentive programs in California and New Jersey, the #1 and #2 states for installed solar in the country.

The bill also includes measures to insure that those who receive assistance get information on how to make their buildings more energy efficient. The passage of this bill would dramatically re-orient our energy priorities. When fully implemented, this legislation would lead to 30,000 MW of new PV, tripling our total current U.S. solar energy capacity. It would increase by almost 20 times our current energy output from PV panels. The legislation would rapidly increase production of solar panels, driving down the price of PV systems and it would mean the creation of over a million new jobs.

Here's how the Ten Million Solar Roofs Act works: take the example of a homeowner who decides to install a 5-kilowatt solar system which, depending on location, would produce enough electricity to cover most, if not all, of an average electric bill (the solar panels would produce excess power during the day that can be sold back to the utility, covering some or all of the cost of electricity when the sun is not shining). That system today costs roughly $35,000 to purchase and install. The federal tax credit of 30% reduces the system cost to $24,500. Most states offer additional tax incentives. For example, if a homeowner could get an additional rebate of $1.75 per watt, the system cost is now reduced to $15,750.

The Ten Million Solar Roofs Act would provide an additional rebate of as much as $1.75 per watt, covering up to 50% of the remaining cost. The result: the consumer now pays $7,875 for the solar system. That's pretty attractive for a family that plans to stay in its home or wants to increase its home value or a small business looking to stabilize its energy costs. Plus, our nation would benefit by reducing expensive construction of new power plants and lowering health care and other costs associated with air and water pollution from fossil fuels.

When Ben Franklin stared at the half sun on the back of George Washington's chair, he proclaimed "I have the happiness to know that it is indeed a rising, not a setting, sun." The power of the sun is here to harness. If we do so wisely, our nation will have the energy capacity to continue to rise as well, just as our Founding Father intended.

14 Comments

Olaf
The cost of doing business must be much less in Europe. The cost of modules appears to be. where to do I buy them for $1.7/watt? Best I can do for a small business is $2/watt if I do not go through a wholesaler. if we had incentives like Germany then the volume would go up and maybe I would by a MW and get the price down. We are looking at $6-6.5/watt installed for a 5.5KW in Michigan. Although our incentive programs are very young.

The 3.5$/Wp is in the Netherlands, Germany is often even cheaper. On many comparison sites for PV systems they offer installation for 2.5-2.8 euro/Wp. (The higher numbers for smaller installations <3 kWp.)

There is still much room for improvement given that the margins of the module manufacturers are rising sharply again. Current module prices are in the range of 1.65-1.75 $/Wp. I expect module prices to fall to 1.6$/Wp this year and 1.2-1.3 $/Wp end of next year.

However the market will still be demand constraint since such a reduction in price brings huge market growth.

This year will see the advent of a wave of extended range and pure electric vehicles, starting with the GM Volt and the Nissan Leaf. The really good news is that our use of oil for transportation will be replaced by electric power line energy which does not use oil. We can look forward to the day when we do not have to commit $500 billion a year and the blood of our military to securing our imported oil supply.

However, we are just kidding ourselves if we think these electric cars won't be charged in the daytime in residences or at work. Unless we move to develop rooftop solar now (e.g. SoCal Edison), the intra-city power distribution grids will be rapidly overloaded. The cost to replace these distribution systems will make distributed solar look cheap in comparison. This is why it is imperative that we pass a federally mandated feed-in tariff to encourage rooftop production. In the end, we will be saving money on the distribution portion of our power bills.

Considering that politics has always been a blurry, sloppy, and incredibly inexact "discipline," I must say that some of the comments critical of Sanders' bill are probably over-reacting, although they certainly should be taken seriously. But the most important point in this article, if you ignore the nitpickers, is that currently fossil-fuel and nuclear subsidies far exceed green, alternative sources of energy, and always have.

Our entire "diet" of fossil fuel and other harmful sources of energy came from the government's heavy subsidies for these particular (and "particulate-heavy") energy supplies since the beginning of the grid itself, and have only increased over time.

Solar photovoltaics work most efficiently when installed at the source of the consumption. In that sense, any general move toward encouraging individual homeowners and businesses to install solar is a good sign, as long as you take into consideration that other bills/approaches might be better (or that Sanders' bill, among others) might get tweaked here and there (as long as the oil, nuclear, and coal industries don't get their grubby fingers in it!).

One last important consideration: if photovoltaics, solar thermal, and wind are ever coupled with storage systems (such as one along the lines of the 50 KWH lithium battery based one in the Tesla Roadster), then not only will solar photovolatics reduce PEAK loads on the utilities, but could possibly drastically reduce BASE loads as well. In fact, completely off-grid situations could become MUCH MORE COMMONPLACE. In my opinion, that is where the emphasis should be right now.

ANONYMOUS
July 23, 2010

Yes- this is a great and simply explained proposal for something that would make such a big impact now and for at least the following 25 years that the panels would be warranted for. And the benefits will affect the entire economy

If you know anything about solar energy then you quickly realize that the most bang for the buck for solar PV is to be had by supporting solar installations in the southern part of the U.S. We are facing a global catastrophe from the unintended side-effects of the industrial revolution powered by fossil-fuels (see http://lightontheearth.blogspot.com/2008_06_01_archive.html#671784870760...).We must get serious and plan a campaign that will maximize the replacement of combustion energy technologies with clean energy generators. Those same solar panels in Florida would replace many times the fossil fuels as they will in Chicago. Chicago should focus its energy expenditures on efficiency, conservation, ground-source heat-pumps, wind and other more cost-effective technologies for that region.

By enacting these one-size-fits-all programs we are only weakening the solar industry because it can end up selling what are basically commodity products with little innovation or differentiation. That hurts the companies that invest in breakthrough products!! Although I am one of the world's earliest developers and promoters of solar and renewables, this political show project is not a wise use of resources.

Solar should only be supported where it makes economic sense and is competitive against other clean technologies. We just don't have any resources or time to waste!! The best types of support are financing incentives like Berkeley, California has pioneered. The next best would be a massive public education campaign on the patriotic duty of every citizen to utilize the most efficient equipment, low-waste strategies and then the most APPROPRIATE clean energy technologies. This will reward the innovative firms and not the corrupt lobbyist/corporate/politician alliances.

A goal of 10 million solar rooftops in 10 years is a worthy one, although perhaps overly ambitious to achieve. As Anonymous #2 notes, the additional $1.75 per watt federal rebate proposed by Senator Sanders would require a huge expenditure (I peg it at $70 billion, assuming an average residential PV system of 4kW). This is not only a difficult political sell, it's a wrongheaded approach, in that it puts the burden on homeowners to shell out the money to erect mini power plants on their roofs. We can't build a true green economy on a foundation of consumer debt and government financing (municipal financing in the case of PACE). It will require much greater participation from private sector financing sources. And we see that occurring with solar leases and PPAs, which are demonstrating tremendous acceptance in the marketplace. This week I appeared on a Boston TV news report (along with executives from SunRun and its installer partner Alteris Renewables) about how homeowners in Massachusetts can get solar panels installed on their roofs for free. In response to that report I got numerous phone calls from interested viewers. They were not green enthusiasts, but middle-class homeowners who had either looked into solar and found it too expensive, or had never even considered it before. Removing the financial burden from consumers to purchase PV systems is the key to getting solar on those millions of rooftops. FYI, you can see that report at http://wbztv.com/local/solar.power.homes.2.1817992.html.

Ladies and gentlemen, when you consider the cost of solar, you need to consider the WHOLE package including the structure and roof/wall system that supports it, not just the electricity generation portion. Under pressure from a DOE director,I have invented and patent pending on a universal (every manufacturer can insert their renewable energy system in it) whole roof/wall system that has the option of all six forms of solar, not just PV and results in the installed cost - including solar - being slightly less than that of a current non-solar residential and half that of a commercial/industrial roof BEFORE subsidies and rebates. Once this system has completed R&D,you will see a major change in the way we build and the percent of energy provided by solar.
P.S. Three decades ago, I created a hybrid-passive solar system that is used worldwide and the Father of Solar believes I now have the answer for PV.
Technotard

ANONYMOUS
July 23, 2010

At least we are moving in the right direction. Billions are allocated to nuclear and the oxymoronic clean coal.
More incentives = more demand = lower price (and greater efficiency).

Correct me if I'm wrong here, but 10 million rooftops at 5 kWp each implies a total add of 50 GWs of solar. If the rebate's $1.75/W, that'd mean this bill would have to be offering $87.5B in incentives. Last I checked, it was only offering $250 MILLION, and that's over 8-9 years. Sheesh, what a dumb article.

Get your facts right! Solar installations cost much less than is shown here. You can install the 5 kWp installation mentioned here for a cost of only 3.5$/Wp, which is considerably less than the 7$/Wp mentioned here. This 3.5$/Wp is including inverters, installation, manhours, etc. This leads to an installation cost of $17.500.